Cheat Sheet

Squarespace 6 For Dummies

Whether you are new to building websites or a web professional who is new to Squarespace, choosing Squarespace to build your site is a wise decision. An overview of the different editing modes in Squarespace can help you figure out where to go in your Squarespace site to perform a certain task. Even a basic task can sometimes turn into a huge hurdle, however, which is why it's important to know where you can go to find help. And if you already have your own domain name, find out how you can update your domain's DNS settings to point it to your site on Squarespace.

Squarespace 6 Editing Modes

Knowing where to go in Squarespace 6 to perform a certain task can be a confusing decision for someone who has never built a website or who is new to using Squarespace. You interact with the following five areas of Squarespace to perform certain tasks:

Preview: See how your site and content will look to your site visitors. You can modify your site's design in Style mode using Style Editor. You also have access to Content mode for managing content and blocks, which are areas of your site that appear on multiple pages, such as a site footer or a sidebar.

Content Manager: Add pages to your site's navigation areas. Content Manager is also where you add content to your pages using an extensive selection of blocks, and arrange those blocks on the page to create unique content layouts.

Activity: Study how people visit your site to find out what content is the most - and least - popular, how they find your site in search engines, and what other websites may have referred them to your site. If you have a blog on your site where people leave comments on blog posts, you can reply to and manage those comments in Activity.

Settings: Control your site's settings and configuration, including setting general site settings, choosing a new template, adding your own custom domain, and inviting contributors to help maintain your site.

Finding Help with Squarespace 6

Creating websites with Squarespace is easy because you mainly just drag and drop. But sometimes, you need help. The Squarespace Help Center is a great resource:

Help site: Search through an extensive collection of articles about using Squarespace.

Live chat: Have a real-time conversation with customer support from the Help site. Available Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. EST.

Community Answers: Get help from other Squarespace users about topics that expand beyond the basic use of Squarespace.

Check out these other Squarespace resources:

Support ticket: Submit a support ticket in your Squarespace site by going to your Site Manager, Settings, Help. Or send an e-mail message to support@squarespace.com.

@Squarespacehelp on Twitter: Get nearly instant answers to simple questions you Tweet from your Twitter account to @Squarespacehelp.

Workshops: From the Squarespace Google+ page, view live video sessions about using Squarespace. You can also choose from an archive of past sessions.

Mapping Your Own Domain to Your Squarespace Site

If you already own a domain name that you want to use with your Squarespace site, you will need to map that domain's settings to point to Squarespace. Mapping your domain to Squarespace can seem like a scary task, but you need to know only a few settings. Your domain host (where your domain is currently registered) can help you modify your domain's DNS settings so that the domain points to Squarespace.

Each domain host is slightly different in regards to how they map DNS settings, but generally you will need to modify the domain's DNS CNAME and A records. Set the CNAME setting to

www.squarespace6.com

and set the A record to

65.39.205.57

After you have mapped your domain to Squarespace, you simply have to log in to your site and claim your domain by going to Site Manager, Settings, Domains.